(I’m on my lunch break at a shopping centre. As per my company’s uniform policy, I am wearing a jacket over my work shirt so it isn’t visible at all. Occasionally, a regular customer at my shop will see me elsewhere in the centre and ask for help, usually directions or recommendations. Then sometimes, this happens:)

Customer: “Where are the shopping carts?”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Customer: “Well? Aren’t you going to get me one?”

Me: “A… What?”

Customer: “I need a shopping cart! I can’t carry it by myself.”

Me: “Well, you’d have to look in the shop you’re buying from. They have their own.”

Customer: “But aren’t you going to get me one?”

(I try to walk away, thinking that I have more than enough on my plate as it is. The customer then attempts to grab my arm; fortunately, I move away fast enough.)

Customer: “This is outrageous! I am going to report you to [My Company].”

Me: “I’m sorry, but I’m not at work right now. We don’t have shopping carts in our shop, and I don’t know where you are going or what you want to carry.”

Customer: “The vase. I said I wanted the vase!”

Me: “And where is this vase?”

Customer: “[Shop a few feet away], obviously! Can’t you see the vase?”

(I had noticed a window display featuring a collection of ornamental pots, so again I suggest that she asks an employee of that shop to help her. Then, I speedily make my way into the staff-only part of my own shop. Later that day…)

Manager: “[My Name], I had a rather weird complaint about you earlier.”

Me: “Was is a lady who wanted me to get a shopping cart so she could buy a vase at some other shop?”

Manager: “Uh… Maybe. A lady came in screeching that one of our employees refused to help her carry her purchase to the car. She insisted that it was you and waved this bag from [Other Shop], and I just said that our policy wasn’t to carry things for people unless they had particular needs. Then she screamed and asked why we didn’t have any carts.”

Me: “I was on my lunch break. I think she might have seen me working at some point but I wasn’t in uniform.”

Manager: “We got security in the end. She wouldn’t stop shouting that we needed carts and better staff. But I think one of the big security lads did manage to carry her vase for her.”

I’m the manager of a pet shop. This bloke comes in. Apparently, he’s a regular who buys lots of cat supplies — litter and food and toys and so on — and today he buys one of those self-assembly recreational climbing frames for cats sometime during the day. He brings it back sometime later and says it’s faulty, because some of the holes that should be in one of the platforms haven’t been drilled so he can’t thread the bolts through to secure the posts, or whatever.

The person on duty says to him to get another one off the shelf that he can swap with this one. But that was the only one, so he can’t replace it.

“Not to worry,” he says, “I’ll just pop up to the other branch.” This other branch is a few miles on the other side of town, and they’re bigger than our branch, so they’re more likely to have the same model in stock. And he leaves, gets in his car, and off he goes, leaving the old model with us.

He was quite right, by the way; we inspected it. He’s packed everything up in the box exactly as it came; just the bags holding the screws and things have been opened. He’s obviously got everything out and got so far putting it together, and then he’s taken it apart again and packed it up; we can tell by the scuff marks. And yes, there are holes missing in one of the platforms.

But he hasn’t got his money back at this time. He never even asked for it, just breezily left the thing here, happy as you like, and just went off.

Anyway, just as we’re about to close, we get a call from a woman who turns out to be his wife, asking if her husband can come round to get his money back. Seems he did go up to the other branch and got another climbing frame, same kind, and paid for it all over again.

He comes in the next day and says his wife tells him he may be able to get some of the money back for the one he brought back. But he can’t believe he can get all his money back. He seems to think it’s a point of morality, because he says he damaged the thing when he tried to put it up, and because he ripped open the bags, and because of the scuff-marks where he part-assembled it, it’s no longer as new, so he never dreamed he’d be able to get a refund for it. He gets quite upset about it, and at one stage he seems almost in tears at the thought that he may be causing the store to lose money, and surely it can’t be right that he should be able to sell something back to the store that he’s damaged, and it’s no longer worth as much as what he paid for it.

It takes me a good five minutes to explain to him how things work. In the end I have to say to him: look, I’m the manager of the store, and I have discretion in these matters, and I say to him, because you’re a regular customer, and because I value your custom, I’m going to do you a big favour, and I’m going to give you all your money back that you spent on this thing. He’s still not happy, but I manage to process the refund back onto his debit card, so at last, I can get the books to balance properly that week.

I was laptop shopping with my Dad, looking for a small laptop to take on my travels. This was ten years ago or so before iPads were really a thing, so I needed a small laptop to keep in touch with home.

We were browsing the different laptops when a member of staff came up to ask if we needed any help.

Dad had already noticed that there were higher-spec laptops for less money, but they were too big for my use, so he queried with the member of staff why they were cheaper.

The reply was that bigger laptops are heavier; therefore you can’t walk as fast with them, so people won’t pay as much for them.

I had to walk away to stop myself from laughing in this poor guy’s face. It’s still a running joke; when I added an extra SSD to my laptop today we said it has lost its value now as I won’t be able to walk as fast with it.

Our shop has recently been bought out by a large chain. They’re keeping the staff on and they want us to help out with the shop’s makeover. The place is being painted, and we are getting new signs, new shelves, and new checkouts; everything is changing and the shop is busy with decorators and staff.

We’ve shut the shop for the day as we can barely move for all the equipment, stock, and general debris. We still have workers moving in and out of the shop, so the doors are still open, but we’ve lowered the metal shutters to indicate that we aren’t open. We’ve also had notices displayed for weeks to state we won’t be open today.

Despite this, several customers still try and come in, bending under the shutters and clambering over shelving. Only after that obstacle course is done do they look around at the bare wires and stripped bare walls and shelving, and all say the exact same thing:

“Oh, are you closed?”

When my brother was a toddler, he never seemed to stop eating, and once his teeth grew in he would eat pretty much anything and everything he had access to. This led to some pretty funny moments.

Moment #1: While eating a packet of crisps, my brother fell asleep. The rule in my family, even at that age, was that if you left your snacks unattended, family members were allowed to take some. On this occasion, he fell asleep with one hand in the bag, and the other clamped tight around the top of the bag, thereby preventing anyone else from getting any without waking him up and making him cry.

Moment #2: When my aunt was visiting, we were having a family roast dinner. Due to my brother’s age, he only had a small portion, which, as per usual, he finished quickly. He got upset about something, so my dad passed him over the table to my mum so she could calm him down. As he was passed over my aunt’s plate, he reached out and grabbed a large slice of beef off of her plate and began to eat it, now completely content. The whole movement lasted only a couple of seconds.

Moment #3: Later, in the same visit from my aunt, we had visited a beach a couple of hours’ drive away. My brother once again had a packet of crisps, but this time he was less protective and my aunt was able to take one — she put it in her mouth, lay down on her spot of sand, and closed her eyes to relax. My brother, who was just slightly larger than average toddler, walked over to her, prised her mouth open, took the remains of his crisp out of her mouth, and ate it himself before walking back to his original position to finish his crisps. And that is why my brother became exempt from the snack-stealing rule.